Betrayer: Foreigner #12 (3 page)

And then they all were in trouble.

“Help, here, ’Nichi-ji, before you go.” Getting into the sunken bath was easy with bruised ribs. Getting out . . .

He lifted a hand, and Banichi came over to the tub and gave him the leverage he needed. Against atevi stature, he was only the size of an eight-year-old, a light and easy lift up to footing on the seat of the tub, and safely back up onto the ridged tiles that gave sure footing around the edge of the bath. There was a large towel on the rack; Banichi offered it, and Bren gratefully wrapped himself in it, trying not to shiver, since shivering hurt.

“One has to shave,” he said to Banichi, rubbing his chin. Atevi didn’t have that problem, and he had always felt he did that operation with a surer hand than his valets. “And I can dress myself, Nichi-ji. I can manage quite well with everything except the queue.”

“I shall be back to assist, Bren-ji, in about that time.”

Banichi left him, to go see about their business. Bren shaved, using the sink, then walked back to his room and dressed, slowly and carefully, in clothes that could, indeed, have used the services of a valet . . . but they were all right, under difficult circumstances.

He found his pain pills in his personal kit and popped two, dry. He was in less pain than yesterday evening, but that had been a high-water mark of discomfort.

Dressed to the waist, he wrapped the compression tape around his chest, which afforded a curious combination of pain and relief, protecting him against shocks or an injudicious stretch. He was just trying to fasten the bandage when Banichi showed up and quietly finished the job.

“Boots,”’ he said, “ ’Nichi-ji, if you will help me with that. Bending hurts.”

“Yes,” Banichi said, and helped him sit down on the bench, then knelt down and helped him on with the boots. Banichi, big, broad-shouldered even for an ateva, went on playing valet and brought him the shirt hanging foremost of the three he had. Banichi helped him on with that while protecting it from his damp hair with a towel about the shoulders.

“I am worse than a child,” Bren said. “I take far more tending.”

“Your bodyguard has great and personal sympathy,” Banichi said, running a comb through his damp hair, preparatory to braiding it. “The ribs, one expects, will be sore for a number of days.”

“It was a stupid act,” he said, “on my part. One can only apologize for it.”

Banichi deftly parted his hair for the queue and began the braid tactfully without comment. Banichi finished it in a matter of moments, and tied it with the ribbon waiting on the bureau, a fresh one, the white of neutrality, the paidhi’s color. That white ribbon, more than guns, more than reinforcements, was the major protection they had—for what it was worth in this place, where he clearly represented the hated north to a lot of citizens of the Marid.

Banichi helped him stand up, then provided the bulletproof vest, brocade on the outside, and with one notable breach in its integrity. It looked to close from the front, but it didn’t; it overlapped at the side. It was stiff, it was hot, and while it did not weigh much, it got heavier, over the hours.

At least, once fastened, its close embrace provided support for abused muscles—or would, until the muscles grew tired of being supported and restricted. The pain wasn’t as bad as it had been last night. No misery could be as bad as it had been last night.

He put on his lighter coat with Banichi’s help. And Jago came in—Banichi’s partner, only a little shorter than Banichi—in black tee and uniform pants.

“We are all awake, Bren-ji,” she said, meaning Tano and Algini as well. “Breakfast will arrive soon.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I shall do very well, now, for myself, Nichi-ji. Thank you.”

Jago was Bren’s lover, when they were not under hostile observation. She had slept last night in Banichi’s room, and she appeared immaculate as usual despite the lack of her uniform jacket. Armed? Yes. Always.

Even the paidhi carried a pistol at times. At the moment it still resided in his dresser drawer, where one of his bodyguard had placed it. Weapons about the person of Guild were universally expected—but a concealed pistol in the pocket of a member of Tabini-aiji’s court—that could make Machigi’s security justifiably nervous.

So he left it there today and trusted his staff—little good he could do anyway in his condition. He took the left-hand door of his bedroom, which opened onto the sitting room, an elegant room of light greens and pale furniture. It was a very comfortable arrangement, with a fireplace, chairs, a table, a couch—

And two sleeping figures occupied that couch, one black-on-black, Guild-uniformed, leaning on the left arm of the couch; on the right arm, another, pale-skinned, with a mop of blonde curls, sleeping in a russet gown.

Young Veijico, to her credit, was not that far asleep. She lifted her head immediately as the door opened and got up fast, despite a rough couple of days.

Not as hard a couple of days as Barb had had. Barb was asleep, a matter of some worry as she had taken that nasty crack on the head last night.

“Nandi,” Veijico said in a low voice—caught, in plain fact, drowsing, when she had been assigned to keep Barb awake as long as seemed needful. “One has not been negligent. The lady stayed awake into the early morning.”

Veijico was in a difficult position with him and with his bodyguard. True, she had doggedly tracked Barb and a handful of kidnappers—kidnappers who now were dead, thanks to her. It would have been
extremely
significant to world peace had Veijico had the least clue for him as to what clan the men belonged to. But she hadn’t.

Had she recognized their accents? No, she hadn’t heard them. Barb had. Unfortunately, Barb couldn’t tell a Padi Valley aristocrat’s accent from a Marid fisherman’s.

Had Veijico any clue as to whether the men she had shot were Guild at all?

Yes, but she didn’t recognize any of them. Had she seen them up close? Well, no. They’d fallen, and pretty soon after that, they’d been captured by more Guild.

There were a lot of points in which Veijico had performed both extraordinarily bravely and a great number in which she had created some serious problems. Veijico was on very thin ice with Jago in particular—who did not approve much of Barb, either.

But the latter was on personal issues.

Barb had stirred at the sound of voices and muzzily opened her eyes and sat up, raking a hand through her curls. She looked scared for a second, and then her eyes lit on Bren. There were little sun lines around those eyes—there hadn’t been when Barb had fancied herself his fiancee. She had married someone else. Then divorced. Now she was his brother’s sailing partner—grown wind-worn and tanned; and Bren felt an uncommon tenderness toward her, considering the predicament, which was
not
wholly her fault, and the sore skull, which was. But Barb seemed to accept it was her fault, and she hadn’t complained.

“How’s the head?” Bren asked her in Mosphei’, the human language.

Barb felt her skull, and winced. “Miserable headache,” she said.

“I’m not surprised at that.” He came and perched aslant on the farther arm of the couch, the one Veijico had left. “There’s a bath down the hall, all our own. A little tub. I recommend it.”

Barb was always slow waking up. Suddenly she blinked, and looked at Veijico, across the room, and at Banichi and Jago, and at him. “Are we all right?” she asked.

“Still all right. I promise you. Go wash up. Are you all right to walk?”

She nodded, winced, and levered herself stiffly to her feet. Veijico looked uncertain what to do at that point, whether to go with her.

“You may wait here, nadi,” Bren said. “The lady will manage.”

Barb walked toward the door, managed, in passing, to lay a hand on his arm, which he was sure nobody—particularly Jago—missed. A human gesture. But human gesture that it was, Barb wasn’t just
any
human, and Jago’s view of that little gesture was not benevolent: Jago knew Barb, oh, too well. There was past history. A lot of it.

He didn’t forget that history, either, though he viewed Barb with more tolerance than previously—so much so that he could interpret that touch as a thank you, not possessive, not even consciously done. She’d been brave, she’d been sensible throughout—

Well, except when the shooting had started back at Najida. She’d run up the sidewalk, by all reports, probably screaming at the top of her lungs, which had landed her very conspicuous blonde self in the hands of atevi kidnappers . . .

. . . who might or might not have been Taisigi clan—the clan of their current host.

God, he wished Veijico, who’d been tracking them, had some knowledge of Marid clans, enough to know the origins of the men she’d shot.

At least she’d had the sense to surrender Barb on the spot and wait for negotiations.

Which was his job. The sun was up, beginning to shine beyond the heavy curtains of windows that didn’t overlook anything close or useful—and after the miracle of their surviving getting in here, and recovering Barb and Veijico, now came his business: actually getting them all out of here alive.

He very much wanted his morning tea, a hot drink, a space of quiet contemplation. He wanted a place to sit and not have to be in charge of things for at least an hour while he got his wits together and imagined what on earth he could scrape up to negotiate a meaningful cease-fire with this young lord.

“Might we have tea while we wait for breakfast?” he asked Banichi and Jago. “Did we drink it all last night?”

“There is a supply, nandi,” Veijico piped up. “And a heating plate.”

A tea caddy and service for nine stood on the buffet. So they had a heating plate somewhere. That was, among amenities their host had provided, a very welcome one.

“Then a pot of tea, if you please, nadi.” Veijico, for her past sins, had not yet ascended to “nadi-ji” in his book. But with Barb safe and ambulatory this morning, and in spite of her answering out of turn, Veijico was rising a bit in his esteem.

Veijico rose still further in his good graces when she brought him the hot tea and several pieces of toast without saying a word. Bren had found a seat in a straight chair at a small side table, and Jago had brought him an occasional pillow for his back, which, with the tea and momentary quiet in the room, set him up very well.

He had time for serious thoughts over one entire cup before Barb came back from the bath, scrubbed and with her hair a little damp and wearing the russet gown—the clothing she had worn the night she was kidnapped.

“Cup of tea?” he asked politely, and Barb sat down in the opposite chair, across the little table, moving slowly and carefully.

“So when are we going home?” Barb asked.

Home. That was a curious way to put it. But, then, Barb and Toby’s only home, their boat, was in harbor at his estate.

He poured her a cup of tea himself and offered it, with a saucer and a piece of dry toast. “It’s not that simple, I’m afraid. I’ve been assigned a diplomatic job to do here that is going to take a few days. If I can get you sent home, I will, but otherwise, just settle in, stay inside the suite, and be patient. The dowager has given me a problem to solve.”

Barb held the cup in both hands to drink. It was large and it was warm, and she sat in the atevi-scale chair with her feet off the ground. She had two sips, eyes downcast. Then: “I haven’t even a change of clothes.”

“Best here that you wear exactly what you’re wearing.” Atevi dress was far less apt to excite comment. “We can ask staff to try to find you a change. Child’s sizes will work.”

“I haven’t my makeup!”

“Next time you’re kidnapped, try to pack.”

“Don’t joke, Bren!”
There
were the tears, just under the surface. “I look like absolute
hell.”

He’d gotten wary of saying things to Barb. No, you don’t look like hell, was the automatic reassurance, but he’d had enough trouble disengaging Barb after their several-year relationship. And of all people on earth he could have shared close quarters with, Barb wasn’t his choice of roommates.

Of all people on earth he could have underfoot during a lifeand-death diplomatic mission, Barb wouldn’t be his choice, either: not Barb and her emotional reactions—and not the aggressive inexperience of the young Guildswoman who’d turned up with her.

“Were you at all able to speak to anybody?” he asked her. Barb understood far more Ragi than she spoke. “There were no Mosphei’ speakers among them, were there?”

“No,” Barb said, and her lip trembled. She held the atevi-scale teacup in both hands, elbows on the table, and took a steadying sip. “I tried to talk to them, and they hit me.”

“The kidnappers? Or the people here?”

“The kidnappers.”

“So the locals have treated you fairly well?”

“Fairly well, I guess,” Barb said. “But they wouldn’t listen, either.”

“What did you try to tell them?”

“I’m not too fluent.”

“Well, but what did you want them to know?”

“I tried to say I was from Najida, and I mentioned your name and the aiji-dowager. I hoped they’d phone you.”

Interesting point. Barb had drawn a mental difference between her kidnappers and where she was now. It might not be a real difference; but somewhere in Barb’s subconscious, it might signify that she had, in fact, seen a difference.

But he didn’t bet their lives that nobody on Machigi’s staff had a few words of Mosphei’, either, and the room was undoubtedly bugged. So it was worth being careful and steering Barb away from certain topics.

“Well, but by then we were out trying to find you. Did you stop at any house, even a shed, a fueling station?”

“We just drove. Forever.”

“Didn’t stop at a fuel station.”

Shake of her head, gold curls moving. And a wince. “Ow. No. We didn’t.”